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The Internet is alight with the news of David Foster Wallace’s suicide. This is hitting me hard, not only because of Wallace’s youth, talent, and unfinished business, but because of my sense that he was not the type of artist who did this. In his writing, and especially in his magazine writing, I always found an authenticity and decency and all-around avoidance of self-tortured preening. I’m not saying we can spot suicidal hints in an artist’s work, but I am saying Wallace connected to real emotions and real concerns in a way that separated him from many of his pomo peers.

This doesn’t feel like the time to track down who broke the news, but I found out via the LA Times‘s blog. In choosing an image to accompany the story, their reporter posted the wrong book cover—not of Wallace’s opus, Infinite Jest, but of Stephen Burn’s David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest: A Reader’s Guide, a short volume in the “Continuum Contemporaries” series.

The Times’ unintentional slip feels like a fitting sort of tribute—with possible implications for Wallace’s style and audience, his relationship to academia, and even the state of fiction today—but I don’t feel like parsing it. I just feel sad.

Coming off the lively snap of “I Saw Her Standing There”, a song with a melodramatic title like “Misery” seems almost bound to be a non-starter. And, to a certain extent, that’s true of “Misery”. It’s a pained account of love lost that heavily wallows in neediness and self-pity (“The world is treating me ba-a-ad / Misery”). Based on his lyrics, John Lennon is positively inconsolable. Oh that his dearest would undo the hurt. Though certainly not always the case, cheerless and rather dull subject matter of this kind can have a deflating effect on a song and, as follows, the listening experience.

Even so, “Misery” is a more compelling number than its drab lyric might indicate. First, there’s the backstory. As it turns out, John and Paul did not write “Misery” for the Beatles themselves. It was originally intended for a young British pop star named Helen Shapiro who was in need of potential country/western material for a future release. Shapiro, however, never recorded the song (although another British artist, Kenny Lynch, later would). Eventually, when George Martin was compiling tracks for Please Please Me, he had the Beatles record, effectively, their entire backlog of songs, one of which was “Misery”.

Side note: I’d be curious to know to what degree John and Paul consciously designed “Misery” as a song for a female performer and how the initial version and the Beatles’ own rendition may have diverged.

Within the song itself, the Beatles made several interesting decisions concerning its mechanics and structure. What stands out most is the song’s moderately crisp pace. Though “Misery” is nothing if not a bummer tune, the Beatles don’t match that feel with a plodding, despondent tempo. After the slow intro, they proceed into a steady gallop, with Ringo’s bouncy percussion as the dominant presence. Throughout, the three guitarists don’t really assert themselves but the pace remains active enough to prevent “Misery” from becoming a total mire of melancholy.

The verse/chorus pattern is also of note. “Misery’s” running time is a brief 1:50, which might reasonably suggest inadequate room for a fleshed-out structure to the song. But that’s misleading. The chorus consists of just one word, “misery”, and, furthermore, the Beatles opted to not include a guitar solo, both of which open up space. To fill that void in a not so predictable manner, John and Paul wrote two modulated verses (only slight variations of each other) to accompany the normal verses. The back-and-forth switch between normal and modulated gives the song a somewhat dynamic flow and hints at the Beatles’ desire, even at their start, to be more than paint-by-numbers songwriters who also happened to be infectious entertainers. They aspired to be serious craftsmen (though, admittedly, “Misery” is a humble offering).

The song’s single best moment, however, arrives at the 1:35 mark. It’s when John lets loose one of the most pitch-perfect and almost comically wounded moans (“oww-o-ow”) that you’ll ever hear in pop music. Few bands could prompt such pleasure with just two seconds of discardable vocal filler.

If art were easy, everyone would do it. And if it were a purely private endeavor, few might pursue such a lack of fame. Still, some prefer to work their particular brand of magic outside the glare of the ever-present camera, their concern being that pure truth and absolute beauty only comes from a secure sense of privacy. When former Velvet Underground guide John Cale set out to make his album 1989 Words for the Dying (a tribute to poet Dylan Thomas) with superstar musician/producer Brian Eno, he asked filmmaker Rob Nilsson to tag along. He thought that the recording process would make a decent documentary - or at the very least, a clever commercial tie-in. Upon arriving in Moscow, the crew discovered something quite disturbing. Eno wanted no part of the project - and his objections were strident.

Thus begins the cinematic presentation named for the LP, an incredibly intimate and often unwieldy look at the creative process. Never simple, always impassioned, and technically rife with all manner of mood swings and personal/professional pitfalls, why anyone would want to invite unattached eyes into the process seems arrogant at best. Lucky for us film fans, such ego overdrive has resulted in some classic motion pictures - Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, DiG, and now Words for the Dying. While Cale can occasionally be a figure of feigned experimentalism, gravitating toward the avant-garde and the unusual because it seems to satisfy his lingering sense of importance (and this is meant in a good way), his work on “The Falklands Suite” and other Words tracks making up this album argues for a musician of much broader scope.

Eno, on the other hand, comes off as the kind of snickering dick you’d immediately want to shy away from. Nilsson listens to his surreal psychobabble explanation of why he doesn’t want to be filmed (and this after Cale warned him and he relented), and even stands on his head to get the producer to acquiesce. Instead, Eno sets up three rules of filming which could easily encapsulate the entire recording process. It seems strange to watch the same man who hogs the screen during several U2 clips (the rehearsal video for the hit “(Pride) In the Name of Love” comes to mind) act like a pissy prima donna. The few glimpses we catch suggest a meticulous taskmaster, a Kubrick like magician who won’t let his artist rest until he gets the exact performance he hears in his head. While such a stance might be embarrassing, it’s also quite engaging. We want to know the mechanics of making music. Eno’s demands strangulate the insight.

Instead, Nilsson is left looking for other areas of focus, and Words for the Dying (new to DVD from upstart distributor Provocateur) is better for it. The first section of the film takes place in Moscow, in the still Soviet Union. Perestroika has given Cale the chance to work with a major orchestra, and the conductor praises the rock God turned composer to the point of embarrassment. It’s quite the contrast from Eno’s frequent faultfinding. Similarly, when a legendary soloist comes in to record, his moment of singular glory is immediately undercut by our beloved producer nitpicking over improvisational choices. It’s an odd experience, like watching someone complain to Picasso over his lack of symmetry. Much of Words for the Dying takes this tricky approach.

Much of the mixed messaging falls on our man from Wales. He is supposed to be celebrating a comeback of sorts (this was his first album in almost four years), and yet he allows Nilsson to do things that deaden the merrymaking. When he has to “trick” his mother into signing the family house away, the director follows Cale to the nursing home, and through the uncomfortable moments between the two. Similarly, a group of snooty pseudo-intellectual fans rag on their imperfect hero in a backstage parlance of self-righteous smugness. After finally covering the creation of Words, Nilsson then offers Cale a chance to see this prosh predetermination. His response? A second or two of feigned acceptance, and then a literal run off into the English countryside.

It would be nice to understand why the filmmaker took such a confrontational conceit. Unlike previously mentioned movies, Words does not do the inward soul searching that Metallica or The Brian Jonestown Massacre/Dandy Warhols offer. On the DVD’s only major bonus feature, an interview with Nilsson, offers limited explanations. Much of the blame is foisted on Eno, the director stating rather emphatically that if said producer had only allowed for greater access, we wouldn’t have the overall piecemeal paradigm, shooters struggling to find material to fill the frame. But this doesn’t address the implied disdain for Cale. Why hurt a man already suffering? Even better, what does seeing the trailed twinkle in the musician’s mother’s eyes add to the creation of an album?

Indeed, the biggest flaw in all of Words for the Dying is the lack of clarification and context. We never get to hear the final tracks, much of the music presented in snippets or snatches. Cale’s previous career is given an equally cursory montage, allowing the elitist dreck spewed by those so-called devotees to remain our lasting impression of his post-Velvets years. Unlike other making-of movies, Nilsson’s cinema verite variations never offer the true backstage experience. Of course, some of this could be Eno’s fault, but one senses a loss of interest in the subject at hand. As state before, Words is at its best when it’s talking to Russian rock bands, listening to a female violinist discuss the chauvinistic Soviet view about women in the workplace, or capturing Cale with his precious daughter Eden.

Again, if any of this were easy, films like Words for the Dying wouldn’t be necessary. For all its turmoil and travails, for allowing Eno’s attitude to drag everything down to his illogical level, Nilsson deserves censure. Luckily, the small amount of music we hear in combination with the inherently interesting man that Cale appears to be mends most of the fences. It’s hard to argue against Words wounded effectiveness. It may come off as coarse and unsympathetic, especially when one realizes that actual professions and reputations are at stake, but the ancillary aspects surrounding the sturm and drang continuously draw us in. Clearly, Cale deserves better. His entire career can’t be marked by what happens here. For Eno and Nilsson however, the results do feel like jeering just desserts - at least for now.

The 2008 Toronto International Film Festival has ended, for me, with a sad whimper. There was no single film that took my breath away, proving, I think, that truly superlative achievements are very hard to come by these days. While there was a lot of passion, and a dazzling array of star power shining on the Canadian red carpets, there was a lack of quality, overall and a feeling of slight disappointment in the eyes and on the lips of industry folks I chatted with as well as the ticket-buying public.

I managed to get in a few truly great viewings (The Wrestler and Arnaud Desplechin’s A Christmas Tale were two of the finest of the fest), several middle-of-the-road tedious films, and only a couple that were truly atrocious. But nothing can beat the overall “festival experience” of being where the celebrities are, where the buzz happens, and where other film fans from all over the world convene to wait in line for hours and hope for a miracle. Sometimes seeing some of these peculiar little films can be an eye-opening occurrence (I’ve Loved You So Long was my biggest surprise this year), while others still can be a total bust.

So, to wrap up my second consecutive year of covering the fest, I have compiled a list of the best and the worst of this festival (not just the films, either!), and ended it all with a spate of five mini-reviews to give you all the low-down on what you should keep an eye out for and others that you should avoid like the plague, as well as a top ten list of what was hot and a quick mention of what just absolutely sucked. Thank God for coffee, Diet Coke, and energy bars.

“I was afraid of betraying the prison experience,” said the radiant Kristin Scott Thomas of her role as a woman released from prison after 15 years, in director/author Philippe Claudel’s moving feature debut. The actress talked at the film’s premiere of “fears of being overwhelmed by my own emotion, of having done some terrible crime. I was afraid my own feelings would get in the way of playing the role”. Thomas was nominated for an Oscar 12 years ago for her part in Anthony Minghella’s epic The English Patient, and in a just world, she will be back for her tour-de-force French-speaking portrait of a woman stilted in her grief and regret (Claudel talked of her “delicious little accent”). “I think we all have a fear of isolation and abandonment,” she added. “It’s our job to use it, that’s my job.”

The biggest let-down of the entire festival. What should have been a knock-out, with a pedigree to die for (Liam Neeson, Laura Linney and Notes on a Scandal director Richard Eyre), was like watching a train wreck in slow motion, even though the film was barely 90 minutes long. Eyre was on hand to talk about how the film was just finished last week, and it shows. Neeson blusters and barks and guffaws with a hammy ridiculousness (“Gucci loafers!” he furiously bellows in one over-the-top scene), and Linney is barely there, but its co-star Antonio Banderas that got the biggest (unintentional) laughs as a playboy who Linney is cheating on Neeson with. He likens himself to “fellow cosmopolitans and fashionistas” in one particularly hysterical scene, as he befriends Neeson’s character, who is out to meet the man who is schtupping his woman. This flop crawls at a snail’s pace and is hopelessly stage-bound, off-kilter, and badly-written and directed. By the time the ludicrous, emotionally-manipulative “twist” happens at the end, I was numb. “How did you find out about me,” whines a transparent Banderas. “You were on a file called ‘love’,” retorts Neeson. Shoot me, please.

Kings and Queen, which also starred Christmas players Mathieu Amalric, Catherine Denueve, and Emanuelle Devos, is one of the most underrated, emotionally-complicated films of the last few years, so it is no surprise that French master Arnaud Desplechin has crafted a film of supreme emotional maturity, familial tensions and pure invention that gorgeously tells each of the film’s character’s stories and allows for a spectacular acting showcase for each of them. The narrative juggles a towering cast, moments of hilarity and tender, moving drama, that all plays out with surgical precision. As the Vuillard matriarch, Denueve gets her best role in years, while Amalric proves that he is one of the finest working actors in the world. Alternately cathartic, dysfunctional and compelling, American family sagas need to start taking on this modern French sensibility that Desplechin has become so adept at executing. This will be released in theaters by IFC in January, and there is no other way to experience this cinematic magic than on the big screen, so seek it out!

Poor Sophie Okonedo. She’s given two capable performances in two of the biggest duds of the fest, The Secret Life of Bees (which she was the single good thing about), and this tedious small-scale drama set in apartheid-ridden South Africa. What could have been a canny entry into the discussion on gender, race and class, instead devolves into a hot mess of histrionics (courtesy of the over-blown presence of Sam Neil as Okonedo’s white father). Based on a true story of Sandra Laing, and her fight to be classified as a white woman, even though her skin was brown (due to something called “polygenic inheritance”), this film fights to be relevant despite its predictable African inspirational music and long gazing shots of the countryside that we’ve seen a million times in a million better movies. This would be right at home on Lifetime Television, where Okonedo might have at least gotten a little bit of positive attention.

One of Tennessee Williams’ “lost” screenplays has been brought to (surprisingly) vivid life by director Jodie Markell (HBO’s Big Love, Joshua and the underrated indie Sweet Land). Markell has a flair for staging the material, and star Bryce Dallas Howard channels her inner Vivien Leigh, but male co-star Chris Evans, unfortunately cannot act his way out of a paper bag. This doesn’t really tread any new ground -– Williams’ milieu is fraught with melodramatic, mentally-unstable Southern Belles, but if you are a fan of the playwright, this isn’t a bad attempt at conceiving his work for a more contemporary audience and very nicely shot. Howard’s temperamental, sarcastic performance definitely is one of the more exciting actresses of her generation, who keeps choosing great material like this, Lars Von Trier’s Manderlay and As You Like It. Ellen Burstyn, Mamie Gummer, and Ann-Margret co-star as random Southern women with some sort of panic-stricken dilemmas they must face.

In what could have been an offensive joke of a performance, Rourke captures hearts with his tender, tough portrait of a man coming apart. Will he capture the Oscar?

02. The Burning Plain

You either love the styles of writer-director Guillermo Arriaga or you hate them (he is responsible for the equally polarizing Babel and 21 Grams), but you cannot deny he is writing more expansive women’s roles than just about any other writer-director out there. He should be applauded, as should Charlize Theron and a career-best Kim Basinger.

03. Cultural Hybridity

Almost all of the films I saw, whether they were period pieces, biography films, or simply daring original works, explored the intersecting themes of borders opening; of lines on the maps being erased. They were beautifully humanist takes on what it’s like to live in a world where everyone’s concept of home is shrinking, and where cultures are bleeding into one another. It’s comforting to see that our modern master filmmakers are perceptively mirroring this global, transient realism onscreen.

04. Star Wattage and Accessibility

Where else are you going to be two feet away from Viggo Mortensen but at TIFF? More than I have seen before, the big guns were brought out for promoting films, for selling films, and for getting the word out there. Be it in the form of press conferences (where I sat directly in front of powerhouses like Queen Latifah stumping for Secret Lifes of Bees), or just walking down the street, there were actors and directors practically littering Yonge Street. Also, the graciousness of these actors and directors to do question and answer sessions with large festival audiences, as well as the frenzied red carpets, and just being present in general at screenings is unparalleled.

05. France

Alors! Staggering in their artistic consistency and integrity, the films from our great French directors at TIFF this year (Olivier Assayas, Phillip Claudel, Claire Denis, Arnaud Desplechin, and Agnes Varda), proved that the country sets the bar much higher for their popular entertainment than we do here, they have a standard of excellence that needs to be emulated. The French directorial vision is typically beautifully art-directed; stunning acted and has, across the board, an emotional pull that is sorely lacking in the American entries this year.

06. Volunteers and Employees

Mostly all friendly and knowledgeable, these tireless enthusiasts had to wrangle not only the public, but the celebrities and the press and industry crowd. A thankless job, where they are paid nothing, but they do it with a smile on their face, for the love of film.

07. Talking to Strangers

Whether it was in line, or on the street to get directions, Canadians are friendly. You are standing in line sometimes for hours to get a decent spot, and are forced, in many ways, to chat up your neighbors. The shocker? They are usually extremely pleasant, excited, and just as knowledgeable about film as you are. A refreshing element to the proceedings that can sometimes be more fun than the films themselves.

08. That Blindness Did Not Stink

People tore this adaptation of Jose Saramago’s novel to pieces at Cannes, and critics had their knives sharpened for it here in Toronto, but Fernando Meirelles pulled it off. Don’t be fooled by those who would dissuade you from seeing it; Blindness is brutal, yet powerfully undeniable filmmaking. And between this and Savage Grace Julianne Moore shows (again) that she is the bravest American actress working.

Canadian food is hit or miss, and that’s being polite (poutin, anyone?). Thank god for the Lao-Thai fusion at this quaint café in the best neighborhood in the city. Affordable, delicious, fresh food and no-nonsense, friendly service (inside or out on the patio) makes this the go-to spot for all visitors. Of note, particularly is their phenomenal brunch. I am not even going to tell you how many times I ate there this week.

10. The Return of Debra Winger

She was only in about four scenes of Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married, but in her scant screen time, she conducted a master class in scene-stealing as the mother of the title character and Anne Hathaway’s noxious Kym. Yes, it may be the “mother” role, but Winger is understatedly elegant, and rock-solid. Here’s to hoping this high-profile release gains her some traction on the awards circuit, in tandem with Hathaway. It’s a small, quietly fuming turn that should be lauded for its poetic simplicity.

The Things I Did Not Love About TIFF 08

01. Jerks on BlackBerrys and I-Phones

Since everyone at the press and industry screenings are apparently so important they couldn’t turn off their phones for five seconds, other people, who were actually trying to work during the festival got treated to a sea of tiny illuminated screens that never went off and, when in combination, produced an obnoxious glow that distracted everyone from everything. At one especially terrible session, a young woman sitting next to me was actually texting on an I-Phone with one hand, and scrolling through her favorite web content with her other hand. This is not an exaggeration.

02. The Lack of Prestige Films

Toronto has been unquestionably known as the launching pad for Oscar nominees. Last year they showed The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Juno, and Atonement (among a score of others), to smashing success and a parade of little gold men. In previous years, they brought out such Oscar war horses as Chariots of Fire, and American Beauty and led the way to glory. This year, none of the movies shown here look primed to be contenders. No one really loved the line-up.

The Wall Street Journal published an article today about a renewed interest in private libraries in the US. In “Why Libraries Are Back in Style”, June Fletcher writes that it’s not exactly a new obsession with books (though they’re still selling well despite the generally acknowledged economic downturn), it’s the comfort factor – the need for an escape within the home from everyday stress.

Apparently, your cosy home library is not simply a place to keep books, it’s a place to reconnect with memories (via framed family photos) and escape the TV or home computer. I was personally dismayed to read that decorators will hunt for books with interesting bindings at flea markets and used book sales in order to decorate wealthy clients’ ill-used libraries – even buying books in foreign languages that the new owners are unable to read, just because the binding looks pretty. Blasphemy!
After speaking with various architects and interior designers, Fletcher sums up their consensus:

Because libraries are public rooms, oftentimes the books are purely decorative and don’t say as much about the family who lives there. The books that people really read, like paperback novels and how-to guides, often are kept out of sight elsewhere in the home.

As long as something is getting read, somewhere, I suppose. In related news, the current issue of Oprah’s O at Home magazine gives readers an “inside look” at the talk show host’s private library, with matching leather-bound first editions galore. Somehow the idea of identically bound Pulitzer Prize winning volumes doesn’t give me a cozy feel, but to each her own!
Do you have a library-like space where you can escape from your computer and other distractions to just relax? If not, what features would your dream library include?